MUSEO DEL GIOIELLO

MUSEO DEL GIOIELLO

MUSEO DEL GIOIELLO

first floor

MUSEO DEL GIOIELLO

the Director’s choiceLa Rosa dei Venti, Giampiero Bodino

MUSEO DEL GIOIELLO

Room 1 . Symbol

A piece of jewellery is traditionally a symbol, whether of power, status, identity or memory. But a piece of jewellery can also symbolise devotion, sentiment or even a territory. In Glenn Adamson’s selection of jewellery, the past meets the present through its symbols: from the marvellous breastplate of the Madonna del Monte Berico, to the crosses, ruffs and crowns that symbolise power, wealth and nobility, through to the evolution of necklaces, bracelets and rings that have gone from aristocratic to pop symbols.

“I realized that the role of symbolic jewellery has changed so much over the centuries, so if we think back to the Renaissance or to other earlier periods, jewellery was really a mean of establishing status and wealth, and since then that role has changed, is now more a mean of estabilishing indipendent individualistic identity. We could also say that the role of symbolism itself is changed in our culture, now if you think of a symbol, you might think of the Coca Cola logo, or the Nike swoosh, or the Apple on the back of your laptop.”

curator: Glenn Adamson, Director of MAD, New York

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Symbol room

Room 2 . Magic

Amulets and talismans are the earliest ornaments in the history of humankind; they are worn not out of vanity but for the divine benevolence they would attract. These are protective, propitiatory and curative pieces with the purpose of warding off evil, attracting benign influences and containing therapeutic properties. Maria Cristina del Mare proposes a selection of “magic” jewellery that, through time and cultures, tells us of man’s primordial need to believe in a supernatural dimension able to rule over the unpredictable factors such as health, luck and illness.

“As an anthropologist, I wanted to choose some specific talismans and amulets, the main priority being to tell a story that goes beyond the boundaries of our western culture, so you will therefore find a series of elements in the Gioielli Magia section that dates back to pre-Roman times, and which also goes beyond the pattern and structure of our organized societies to focus attention on all those elements and beliefs that are typical of societies and which we would define as primitive or, in any case, non-European.”

curator: Cristina Del Mare, Anthropologist

Magic room

Magic room

Magic room

Magic room

Magic room

Magic room

Magic room

Magic room

Magic room

Magic room

Magic room

Magic room

Room 3 . Function

Jewellery is often considered useless, opulent and with no other function than to be decorative. The functional jewellery pieces we present here show the opposite. The jewellery selected by Alessandra Possamai are all functional items transformed into jewels, and they perfectly embody the tastes of their particular period, as well as the materials and techniques used, making them dazzling evidence of other times.

“Choosing the items to display in Vicenza’s Museo del Gioiello was governed by a cross-fertilization between the western and eastern worlds because I believe that it is in diversities and differences that one is able to progress, even in such an apparently futile field as jewellery, which is, instead, the result of work, culture, religion and symbols. The choice began from fibulas, because, as an art historian and archaeologist, I am extremely fond of the 7th and 6th century B.C.”

curator: Alessandra Possamai, Historian

Function room

Function room

Function room

Function room

Function room

Function room

Function room

Room 4 . Beauty

Jewellery is often considered useless, opulent and with no other function than to be decorative. The functional jewellery pieces we present here show the opposite. The jewellery selected by Alessandra Possamai are all functional items transformed into jewels, and they perfectly embody the tastes of their particular period, as well as the materials and techniques used, making them dazzling evidence of other times.

“Choosing the items to display in Vicenza’s Museo del Gioiello was governed by a cross-fertilization between the western and eastern worlds because I believe that it is in diversities and differences that one is able to progress, even in such an apparently futile field as jewellery, which is, instead, the result of work, culture, religion and symbols. The choice began from fibulas, because, as an art historian and archaeologist, I am extremely fond of the 7th and 6th century B.C.”

curator: Alessandra Possamai, Historian

Beauty room

Beauty room

Beauty room

Beauty room

Beauty room

Beauty room

Room 5 . Art

During the 20th century, numerous sculptors dedicated themselves to making jewellery, transferring their figurative skills, sometimes in the form of simple miniaturisation or by working with the minute scale of jewellery itself. Jewellery, for everyone, can represent a sculpture for the body, transmitting concepts and desires, especially in terms of artistic research. Helen Drutt’s selection present jewellery by US artists who, like Alexander Calder or Art Smith, have renewed the relationship between jewellery and art.

“Jewellery is art, for me, is different because each piece is made by an individual, it is not made by industry, it is made by an artist who has a unique vision and who has the ability to enquire about a range of aesthetic ideas and to incorporate a particular personal concept. Since we decided to curate or organize an exhibition of american work, there was a definite obligation on my part to research and to carefully examine the field, and to try to select twentyfive or twentysix works that would illustrate the range of aesthetic, you know, or the range of… the broad range of creative aesthetic work that existed in the United States, from the late twentieth century to the early twentyfirst century.”

curator: Helen W. Drutt, Critic and collector

Art room

Art room

Art room

Art room

Art room

Art room

Art room

Art room

Art room

Art room

Room 6 . Fashion

Jewellery has always been extremely closely tied to fashion and from ancient times through to the modern day, fashion jewellery has been an aesthetic mirror of society, costume development and technological progress. This selection is dedicated to Anna Piaggi, the muse of numerous designers and a visionary when it came to the new languages of fashion. The fashion jewellery on show belonged to her and to her dramatic ability to contaminate contexts.

“In order to find a selection of jewellery for the Anna Piaggi collection, I made a study starting from what she had written and so I re-read all the articles she wrote in her long career as a journalist. She actually left a list of jewellery items on which she noted down her favourites. What especially characterized her was her ability to re-use elements that had nothing to do with clothing by re-adapting them to garments and accessories, like costume jewellery.”

curator: Stefano Piaggi, Director, Archivio Anna Piaggi

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Fashion room

Room 7 . Design

Design is one of the most interesting expressions of contemporary society, due to its capacity to interweave different disciplines and create exchanges of knowledge. The result is a conception of jewellery where preciousness is no longer defined by the nobility of the materials used, but by their creativity and innovation. The selection is dedicated to Italian design and shows the link between Italian designers and jewellery, from the post-war period to the current day, together with their ability to transform outdated materials and to being new meanings to the jewellery world.

“Surprisingly, due to very different historical reasons, the masters of Italian design have never taken jewellery into consideration. First of all, the functionalist heritage of the modern movement - let’s not forget that Italian designers in the 1960s were mainly architects - which not only aimed at emphasizing function but also the social value of the design. And so an apparently useless item, although certainly linked to the aesthetics of luxury, as is jewellery, was, at least formally, of no interest to the masters of Italian design. In realty, these selfsame masters did design jewellery but only privately within their families as gifts for their wives, daughters or women.”

Alba Cappellieri

“For this hall of the Museum, we decided to select jewellery designed by architects or planners who would normally work with an all-round perspective, and avoid the specialists, that is, jewellery designers. In other words, people who deal with all levels of design, even the architecture of the smallest object, and in this selection, jewellery is included.”

Marco Romanelli

curators: Marco Romanelli, Architect | Alba Cappellieri, Director, Jewellery Museum

Design room

Design room

Design room

Design room

Design room

Design room

Design room

Design room

Design room

Design room

Design room

Design room

Room 8 . Icons

Icons are narrative pieces of jewellery, items able to tell exceptional stories through their technical and historical details. Paola Venturelli’s selection is dedicated to Italy: these are Italian jewellery items that have innovated language, shape, meaning, materials and techniques, such as cameo, coral, micro Roman mosaics and gold leaf. Masterpieces from the past to rediscover and understand the present and design the future.

“Italy, legend and icon. This is the title that I have given to the section I have organized for Vicenza’s Jewellery Museum - an exquisitely Italian jewellery section of items I have selected from the late 1400s to 1932. I chose them with a particular tone, and the tone is that of materials and working techniques. Italy has undoubtedly excelled at working some materials and the jewellery displayed in the section is the proof. And so I would naturally say that we must begin with a selection of cameos.”

curators: Paola Venturelli, Historian

Icons room

Icons room

Icons room

Icons room

Icons room

Icons room

Icons room

Icons room

Room 9 . Future

What will jewellery be like in the future? Odoardo Fioravanti’s selection will try to answer this question, presenting visions and panoramas of the future, by looking at materials and innovative technologies, items with new content, new interaction with the body, and new contexts. This is a futuristic look at the new horizons, disciplinary mixes and contaminations with worlds that are usually a long way away from jewellery. A journey into the future, steeped in inspiration, brainwaves, and suggestions.

“The curatorship work started from the fact that I, in my profession, deal in industrial design and therefore, an area that often works on the technological side of design and, in my line of research, I usually investigate into the borderline spaces between the design and technology worlds. when I turned my gaze towards the jewellery world, my very first thought was to understand what could be the future of these things that historically are considered as embellishments, or jewels or simply jewellery. What immediately struck the eye is that this category is in constant change and is rapidly aiming at something different than its usual self.”

curators: Odo Fioravanti, Designer

Future room

Future room

Future room

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Future room

Future room